Artist Lena Johansson Turns the Humble T-Shirt Into Art

Art and fashion, fashion and art: The two are always circling each other, coming together, pulling apart, and beginning their shy dance all over again. One of their more recent convergences was a happy but quiet one and took place not on a runway or a billboard but at an art fair in Stockholm, where Lena Johansson, a reedy Swede now based in London, exhibited an installation featuring works painted on cheap cotton T-shirts. The small format the artist prefers increases the “intensity” of her output, as does her lush, sensuous brush technique, which creates a “high gloss” feeling that extends, and comments on, the shiny commercial—and fashionable—imagery much of her work is based on. Here she talks to us about her style, inspiration, and the mop-topped model Kerkko Sariola.

How did the T-shirt exhibition come about?I knew I wanted to do something inspired by London and the atmosphere here. I also wanted to investigate what painting can be and do. Then suddenly a concept came to me that I felt would allow me to pursue subjects I had been thinking and asking questions about. What would happen if I painted an original work from lifestyle media directly on a very cheap white T-shirt? How would it be read in that context? I thought it was a fun concept for an art fair and very easy to transport. I am still very satisfied with it.

What were you references for the T-shirt series?I always try to let my intuition choose, but it’s important they are commercial, public, and widely spread. For these paintings I used pictures published in U.K. magazines of the moment.

What is your personal relationship with fashion?The first word I think of is fun. I also associate fashion with a lot of creativity and lust. I have always been interested in fashion, even if most of the time my outfit consists of my work clothes—old trousers with a lot of paint stains, really worn-out shirts, and Birkenstocks. This is the costume of the studio, my favorite place in the whole world.

Can you talk a bit about your lush, textural use of paint?First I use gesso to create a surface to paint on, and then I use oil color. I play with different textures, but it is important to me that the colors and the structure have that feeling of smudgy, gooey lust that is unique to oil paint. I am very sensitive to the luminosity of the colors. Except for the painted image, the T-shirt pieces are quite imperfect and rough, showing traces of the painting process with drips and stains and spots and dirty fingerprints and even holes from the staples, because the fabric is so fragile.

How did you come to paint from photographic sources?A long time ago, in my second year at the Malmö Art Academy, I felt I needed to break free and do everything that was considered wrong in painting, which included painting from photographs, especially commercial ones. I have always had a very ambivalent approach to these images. As a teenager I was dreaming about these fantastic worlds at the same time I was listening to my father, who used to work with gender-discriminating publicity at the Swedish Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket) and brought home many publications with critical analyses on the subject.

After painting this way for a while, I found there was more to [these images than I had thought] and that I was really interested in fashion photography and commercial imagery. My opinion is that they are deeply essential, they talk to our dreams and our desires, and they really know how to catch our deepest longings. I think these images are deeply human and speak to our need for beauty, seduction, sexuality, flirtation—all that belongs to us. It is ours to take. When preparing for a painting, I see a photograph as any other object—like a cup or a hat—and I feel free to examine it through painting. I am interested to see what will happen to this imagery as it filters through me and the painting process, which changes its medium and context.

Because these types of images surround us and are so common in our lives, they are also an important common story among us, and I find them very necessary to discuss. I am not so fond of the fact that we communicate so much of our identity through brands; I think it’s bad for our health and well-being to interpret all those needs and dreams into consumption and replace them with certain products. As many others are, I am also very concerned about climate change and how fashion’s need for constant growth often results in products that lack quality and careful consideration, like a T-shirt that cannot be washed or used more than one time before getting holes and losing its form. That’s good for no one. I really like and have a great respect and love for craft and craftsmanship, and I agree with the thoughts of William Morris and Swedish writer-philosopher Ellen Key that to be surrounded by good design and a beautiful environment is good for health and creates happiness and comfort.

I understand the work might continue with Kerkko Sariola?It is so fun with Kerkko. Mathias Fältmarsch, who runs the agency that represents him, saw the exhibition, recognized Kerkko as one of the subjects, and wrote me a letter. It was the first time ever that someone who actually has a personal relationship with a model in one of my paintings, who actually knows him, had contacted me. I thought that was so beautiful and am so glad Kerkko liked the work—he even put it up on his Instagram. Right now we are discussing if I will paint a portrait of Kerkko from a photo that he chooses himself, in the way he wants to be portrayed. Nothing is decided yet, but I think that could be a nice and beautiful twist to the project.